After months of speculation and one sneaky spy shot, Spotify for iPad has finally arrived.
The app lands on the App Store today, bringing Retina Display support to the new iPad 3 and a swipe-tastic user interface that spans all generations of Apple's tablet.
Check the app out in action in our video below:
Spotify refers to this as the "actual" iPad app and says that the focus is on discoverability as opposed to the iPhone app's focus on playing what you've already discovered.
Spotify for iPad is fairly similar to the recently announced Spotify Android beta app and, just like the spyshot that leaked back in April, it comes with panelled navigation and a slick interface that sees you swiping to skip tracks and making the most of the large screen to show off album art.
Rock 'n' roll train
As always, you'll need to be a premium Spotify subscriber to stream music through the app, although free users will be able to download and log-in to the app to lust after its features if they want.
The app comes with most of the features you'll find on the desktop version – recommendations, playlist view, folders, inbox and the ability to browse friends' profiles – but it doesn't have the Spotify apps like last.fm and We Are Hunted.
It sounds as though the apps could be on the cards for future iterations of the Spotify iPad app though, as Gustav Söderström, Spotify's chief product officer, said in response to a question about the Spotify apps, "We're always working on lots of stuff, listening to users seeing what they like and developing for that. So we'll let you know."
Audiophiles will be pleased to hear that the app comes with optional crossfade and gapless playback for the first time on iOS.
The dedicated Spotify iPad app will hit the iOS App Store later today as a free download and if you just can't wait, you can check out our Spotify for iPad review.
